fa قلب Heart پژوهشي Research <div><strong>Background: </strong>Zinc depletion decreases monocyte functions and survival while excessive amount of zinc inhibits monocyte activation. Monocytes shift from conducting intercellular communication to becoming innate immune function as a response. This study aims to examine the influence of zinc status on the monocyte phagocytosis in patients with major beta-thalassemia.<br> <strong>Materials and Methods: </strong>This study was a randomized-placebo-controlled trial. The patients were randomly assigned into either the zinc-treated group using zinc gluconate 50mg daily or the placebo group. Analysis is based on the 12-weeks observation of the complete blood count, plasma zinc level, and phagocytosis level of monocytes. The phagocytic activity of monocytes was measured using atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS) or x-ray fluorescence (XRF). The comparisons of the data within each group were analyzed using Mann-Whitney test.<br> <strong>Results: </strong>The results indicated no significant differences in patients&rsquo; characteristics; the level of plasma zinc at week 12 in the zinc-treated group (67.41+14.4) was significantly higher than the placebo group (54.37+9.38) (p=0.047). The phagocytosis levels of monocyte at week 12 in zinc-treated group (8.70+4.61) were higher than the placebo groups (8.23+4.22) (p=0.002). The ferritin level of zinc-treated group was higher than placebo group (p=0.084), while high level of ferritin is associated with higher level of monocyte phagocytic activity, the result is statistically significant (p=0.002). The results also showed that higher level of plasma zinc insignificantly correlates with lower phagocytic activity of the monocytes (p=0.059).<br> <strong>Conclusion: </strong>The immune mechanisms in response to zinc-deficient environment underlying the shifting between adaptive to innate immune response involves multiple molecular components of the immune system and have been attributed to specific features of -thalassemia, in which overall immune activity is decreased even though the phagocytic activity of monocytes is increased.</div> Major beta thalassemia, Monocytes, Phagocytosis, Zinc 24 29 http://ijpho.ssu.ac.ir/browse.php?a_code=A-10-636-3&slc_lang=fa&sid=1 Teny Tjitra Sari Yes Hematology-oncology Division, Department of Pediatrics, Cipto Mangunkusumo General Hospital – Faculty of Medicine, University of Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia Hematology-oncology Division, Department of Pediatrics, Cipto Mangunkusumo General Hospital – Faculty of Medicine, University of Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia Dewi Wulandari 0000-0002-3656-7813 No Department of Clinical Pathology, Faculty of MeMedicine, University of Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia Department of Clinical Pathology, Faculty of MeMedicine, University of Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia Astrid Indrafebrina Sugianto No University of Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia University of Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia